Recruiting Country: The latest recruiting news surrounding the Maroon & White

TexAgs' recruiting analyst Ryan Brauninger joined TexAgs Live on Wednesday morning for another edition of Recruiting Country, highlighting the latest news and notes from the recruiting trail surrounding Texas A&M.

Key notes from Recruiting Country

• The numbers on the transfer portal tracker, now that it has officially fallen off the front page, unstickied and is locked... It might be the most engaged thread in TexAgs history. It got north of 4.1 million views. Over 17,000 replies. It was just incredible.
   
• I was on the boards and made a comment about Hero Kanu, who's the defensive tackle from Ohio State, and A&M was in the mix. He was sort of their last portal target remaining. A&M was dead set to get a visit on Monday, and I thought this one had a chance to get that over the line. He's got a background with Texas A&M. He's come to camps here. They recruited him out of high school. He was with that international group with Theo Melin Öhrström, so there was obviously a connection on the team there.
   
• Kanu was dead set to be in College Station on Monday. He never made it. He went to Texas on Sunday and canceled his A&M visit or said he was going to reschedule. I was kinda foggy there. He went to Florida instead. I thought maybe when he left Gainesville, he'd come back to A&M and visit. He went to Athens and visited Georgia. This morning, he committed to Texas. The fact of the matter is Texas had a major need at the position.
   
• With their offer and their need, Texas put forth a package that would indicate that he is a priority target and a value to them. I think Florida probably got close. I don't think anybody touched what the package of what Texas put forth, and that's the reality of what we're living in today. I'm not saying the Longhorns did anything wrong. I'm not being hypercritical. They won out, but it's just about how all this stuff is allocated. Who's got a bigger need?
   
• One of the crazier things now is everybody's got money. Now, with revenue sharing coming into practice, if you ever thought that this thing was going to level out and some type of price control was coming just based on the market...Well, all you've done now is flood the market with even more teams that have even more money with this rev share thing. 
   
• Say Kansas has a desperate need for a right guard. Kansas can now go over pay. Everybody's got money. It's only going to drive the market up, and it's going to continue to give the players and the agents. More importantly, the leverage when they go into these deals.
   
• Recapping the A&M portal, I would give it a B. If we'd have clarity on Micah Hudson, you may could bump it up to a B-plus. They still have needs in the spring window. 
   
• I'm coming from the opinion, and this is not coming from any conversation that I've had with anybody of substance in terms of sources or contacts. It is my gut and my personal opinion that the spring portal window is going to be more active than it ever has been before.
   
• Every one of these transfer portal windows in covering where you look back at it as an analyst, every one of them, the decision-making processes have got more convoluted, more compulsive and driven by the dollar, which makes me believe that there's going to be more players with more people in their ear in the spring. I just think there's going to be more places receptive to that type of sales pitch and increasing their overall profile/value that they're going to test the spring water portals to see what's out there.
   
• I do anticipate A&M having an opportunity to add another defensive tackle and to add at wide receiver and perhaps add at the best available position. Mike Elko, Collin Klein, and the rest of the staff will start going through the rest of their spring ball, and right now, they're going through their off-season lifts and off-season conditions with Tommy Moffitt. Maybe there's a roster deficiency that they didn't know was popping up that they didn't know they had.
   
• It's obviously a need that they need to go get a defensive tackle, interior defensive lineman, and they got to get a receiver. If you go back to last year’s spring portal. They added guys like Solomon DeShields, Shane Calhoun, Kolinu'u Faaiu, Josh Celiscar and Jacob Bostick. They added five last year, and I think Jacob Bostick was the last addition to the roster.
   
• Just like we've been saying for a long time now. It goes back to when this portal stuff started, and we started to understand the calendar. The roster management and player acquisition window was going to extend almost to the summer. You really can't grade what A&M has done for this football roster for the 2025 season until it's all done. So, where are they at right now? I'd give it a B. It could go down. It could go up. 
   
• I like what they did at tight end. I like what they've done at the defensive line. They need another. I like what they've done at receiver. They need another. Even if Micah Hudson comes back, they need another receiver. 
   
• They took Jonah Wilson out of nowhere, and that was kind of out of nowhere to take. They had a very specific need at quarterback, and they filled that as well. They've done some nice things. They've added a cover man in Julian Humphrey. They've just done some savvy moves that were necessary for the roster in terms of filling specific needs.
   
• They had big overarching needs like at receiver and at pass rusher. On top of that, you have to take into account when you're looking at what this football team looks like, at least for this spring, as they go under year two under Elko...You've got to look at Elko bringing in all but one of their 2025 signees. The only one not on campus right now is Jerome Myles‍, and he's a freak but he's returning from injury.
   
• What I have heard is that they are sensationally good at on being on time, going to class and turning stuff in. All the little stuff. These kids have come in and taken care of their business. 
   
• There was a class that came in that we heard the first couple of weeks with guys no showing in practice. No show in meetings. No show in workouts. Not turning in paperwork. Having to be chased down for the simplest of stuff of signing papers. All that stuff that gets glossed over, and I'm sure it has no bearing on winning games. I'm sure there have been a lot of teams that have won a lot of football games that don't have kids taking care of their off-the-field stuff on time, but it's a comfortability check mark. They have a great group of kids in.
   
• A&M’s Junior Days are over, but with how Coach Elko does it, their spring practices are very important to their spring recruiting because they like to bring guys in to see how the coaches interact with the players. The two Junior Days were really beneficial. Especially to set them up to get other visits from some of those top offensive lineman prospects like Jackson Cantwell‍ or Immanuel Iheanacho‍. They did a good job of setting the framework to get official visits for some of the top guys they brought in over those Junior Days.
   
• I still think there is a run of in-state commitments coming. They just offered another safety out of North Crowley this morning. A kid named Aaron Bradshaw‍, who is just taking off, a 6-foot-4, 190-pound safety.
   
• It's going to be very interesting to see how the recruiting pitches and the pushes take shape in the state of Texas in this cycle. Right now, it doesn't look like it's nearly as complete of a class instate as the one before it in 2025, and it certainly doesn't look like 2027. Which 2027 is shaking up to be a very, very strong in-state class of players. The state of Texas bears this out, especially in recent NFL Drafts. Even in a class like 2026, where we don't think it's as talented as some before or after it. Even within that class, there's going to be 25 or 30 players from the state of Texas drafted. Your job is to go find which ones they are.
   
• The evaluations continue to take shape, with the coaches on the road getting to see some of these kids in person. Maybe there were kids that they were really high on before they went and saw them on campus, but that has now faded. Maybe there are some new guys as they go out across the state, especially in these big metro regions. You're going to find players in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. You're going to uncover something. Maybe they were on the fringe. Maybe they have a bunch of G5 offers, and there's a couple of low P4s, and you're like, "Man, this kid is growing like crazy. He's got all the measurables." I think that's one thing Coach Elko is looking for. Not so much stars, but measurements.
   
• We know that NFL offensive linemen check these boxes from a physical standpoint. We know they have this size hand, this arm length. We know that receivers run this fast. We know that if you're a corner, and you're north of 4.55, you don't get drafted in the NFL. That's just the way it is. Maybe some of these guys who peaked early aren't getting faster, and maybe some guys who are late bloomers are now getting faster and reaching those measurements that the coaching staff is looking for. There's a bunch of homework being done right now as they go around the state, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how their big board unfolds in the state of Texas.